NASA has broad political support, and therein lies one of its biggest problems

When NASA was going great guns back in the 1960s, when it was capturing nearly 5 percent of the federal budget, it could afford to spread the love.

By that I mean the space agency had contracts in every state for the Apollo program. It built 10 field centers in states from Florida to Texas to California. This made political sense for NASA at it ensured widespread, continuing support in Congress as the pork flowed into every senator’s backyard.

NASA has maintained this mode of spreading its business around in the decades since even as its share of the federal budget has declined from just under 5 percent to 0.5 percent.

Today NASA also still has 10 field centers sprinkled across the country, when it was apparent in the 1970s that the space agency didn’t need that many. This was a point Chris Kraft, a former spaceflight director, drove home to me in a recent interview:

George Low (manager of the Apollo program and a NASA administrator) and myself got together in 1975, and he asked me how we could rebuild and reshape NASA to have a vibrant group of people. We knew we had five or six too many centers. We didn’t need that many. Let the Jet Propulsion Laboratory do the unmanned stuff, and have two or three other centers do manned spaceflight. That’s all NASA needed then, and needs now. But politics wouldn’t let us do that. The centers are still going today, and some are getting bigger.

And this point was reinforced this week during an event in Washington, D.C., titled Beyond Earth: Removing the Barriers to Deep Space Exploration, during which NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Bill Gerstenmaier gave a presentation (see the video here).

During his talk about the Space Launch System — the rocket and spacecraft NASA is building to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit — Gerstenmaier showed the following slide, which displays the locations of partners and suppliers for this rocket and spacecraft:

Partners and suppliers in NASA’s new rocket and spacecraft program. (NASA)

Gerstenmaier said the map above exhibits the economic benefits of NASA’s human spaceflight program to the country. And it’s true that NASA pumps money into a lot of local economies, including Houston.

But during a time of strained finances, shouldn’t we want our space program to be efficient? Spreading money across the maximum number of states, and 10 field centers, seems to make limited fiscal sense.

Which brings me to the point of this article: By spreading its funds across the country, and having 10 field centers, NASA can count on a broad political base. But by having so many fiefdoms (the NASA centers), and feeling compelled to spread contracts across the country, the space agency ends up being horribly inefficient and accomplishing significantly less than it could.

I’m not sure there’s the political will to fix a problem that’s been evident for four decades any time soon.

The International Space Station was launched in November 1998, fifteen years ago. Here are some great photos inside and outside the largest artificial body in Earth's orbit. (Photo from NASA)
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The International Space Station was launched in November 1998, fifteen years ago. Here are some great photos inside and outside the largest artificial body in Earth's orbit. (Photo from NASA)
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The flight path of International Space Station (ISS) can be seen on the screen as Flight Director Ed Van Cise supports ISS from Mission Control at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013, in Houston. The International Space Station has been in operation for 15 years. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )
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The flight path of International Space Station (ISS) can be seen on the screen as Flight Director Ed Van Cise supports ISS from Mission Control at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013, in Houston. ... more

Photo: Houston Chronicle

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NASA employees make their way into the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013, in Houston. The International Space Station has been in operation for 15 years. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle )
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NASA employees make their way into the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013, in Houston. The International Space Station has been in operation for ... more

Photo: Houston Chronicle

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Inside the Cupola, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, an Expedition 36 flight engineer, eyeballs a point on Earth some 250 miles below him and the International Space Station before pinpointing a specific photo target of opportunity.
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Inside the Cupola, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, an Expedition 36 flight engineer, eyeballs a point on Earth some 250 miles below him and the International Space Station before pinpointing a ... more

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The ISS was not launched all at once. Rather, it was built piece by piece over the years. Here, astronauts worked to attach a new segment to the ISS. (Photo from NASA)
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The ISS was not launched all at once. Rather, it was built piece by piece over the years. Here, astronauts worked to attach a new segment to the ISS. (Photo from NASA)
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A closeup view of a water droplet on a leaf on the Russian BIO-5 Rasteniya-2/Lada-2 (Plants-2) plant growth experiment, which is located in the Zvezda Service Module on the ISS. (Photo from NASA)
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A closeup view of a water droplet on a leaf on the Russian BIO-5 Rasteniya-2/Lada-2 (Plants-2) plant growth experiment, which is located in the Zvezda Service Module on the ISS. (Photo from NASA)
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NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Expedition 37 flight engineer, works with hardware at a workstation in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. (Photo from NASA)
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NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Expedition 37 flight engineer, works with hardware at a workstation in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. (Photo from NASA)
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The crew aboard the ISS managed to snag this shot of the Sarychev volcanic eruption in 2009. (Photo from NASA)
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The crew aboard the ISS managed to snag this shot of the Sarychev volcanic eruption in 2009. (Photo from NASA)
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The Space Shuttle Endeavour crew captured this shot of the International Space Station (ISS) against the backdrop of Planet Earth. During that trip to the ISS, the space shuttle crew re-supplied the station, repaired the station, and even built more of the station. Its primary mission complete, the crew took the ship on a tour around the premier space station. Pictured during this inspection tour, the ISS is visible in front the Ionian Sea. The boot of Italy is visible on the left, while the western coastlines of Greece and Albania stretch across the top. (Photo from NASA)
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The Space Shuttle Endeavour crew captured this shot of the International Space Station (ISS) against the backdrop of Planet Earth. During that trip to the ISS, the space shuttle crew re-supplied the station, ... more

The Aurora Borealis or “northern lights” and the Manicouagan Impact Crater reservoir (foreground) in Quebec, Canada, were featured in this photograph taken by astronaut Donald R. Pettit, Expedition Six NASA ISS science officer, on board the International Space Station. (Photo from NASA)
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The Aurora Borealis or “northern lights” and the Manicouagan Impact Crater reservoir (foreground) in Quebec, Canada, were featured in this photograph taken by astronaut Donald R. Pettit, Expedition Six ... more

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Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. (Photo from NASA)
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Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. (Photo from NASA)
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Chicago, Ill. is shown in this photo from the ISS at night. (Photo from NASA)
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Chicago, Ill. is shown in this photo from the ISS at night. (Photo from NASA)
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This view of Hurricane Isabel was taken by one of the Expedition 7 crew members on board the International Space Station. (Photo by NASA)
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This view of Hurricane Isabel was taken by one of the Expedition 7 crew members on board the International Space Station. (Photo by NASA)
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In this Sept. 5, 2012, file photo, provided by NASA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide, Expedition 32 flight engineer, uses a digital still camera to expose a photo of his helmet visor during the mission's third session of extravehicular activity (EVA). During the six-hour, 28-minute spacewalk, Hoshide and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams (visible in the reflections of Hoshide's helmet visor), flight engineer, installed a camera on the International Space Station's robotic arm, Canadarm2. (AP Photo/Nasa, Aki Hoshide, File)
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